Jayne Dowle: A polite reminder for us to mind our manners

As I told the security man who was yelling at my son, there really is no need to shout. We were waiting in the car-park for football training to start, and Jack and his friend were playing on their micro-scooters. Nothing especially threatening about micro-scooters you might think. Every kid under the age of 16 seems to have one.

Suddenly though, this man strode over in his regulation day-glo vest and yelled at the hapless lads: “Oi, get off those now, they’re banned from this car-park!” Given that I was standing right beside them doing my best impression of a responsible adult, I 
was shocked at his immoderate 
tone. I won’t detain you with further details, except to say that I responded as calmly as possible, the scooters 
went back in the car, and the boys and I had a little chat about adult/child interaction.

It seems to me, I pointed out, that adults cannot expect young people to behave nicely if they don’t set a good example themselves. So I was amused to see that “decline in good manners” tops the list of that recent “modern life is rubbish” survey by Ask Jeeves, the internet search engine. Nearly two in three of us, apparently, think that people are less polite than they used to be, to which my immediate response was “is it any wonder, with blokes like that security man in charge of things?”

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That little incident made me so cross because it went right to the heart of how I am I trying to bring up my children, 
to respect other people, drilling into them the mantra which I learnt 
myself in Sunday School: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

This seems like a pretty decent basic principle to live by, but every day I see it flouted by adults, who then go and moan to a survey about the decline of manners in society. It causes me to question if we really know what 
we mean when we talk about manners. Do we actually understand that manners need be nothing more complicated or demanding than consideration?

To be fair to that security man, I don’t think he realised how rude he sounded. In private, he is probably a nice bloke, but his attitude reinforced the growing notion that manners are something bolted on as an optional afterthought rather than a representation of basic mutual respect.

No wonder our children are confused. At one end of the scale we have security men bellowing at 10-year-old lads for nothing, and at the other, we encounter the level of exquisite politeness customarily reserved only for members of the Royal Family.

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If you order a takeaway coffee in a certain well-known chain, you will find the person behind the counter asking your name, noting down your preferences, indeed becoming so attentive to your personal needs that you are stricken with guilt if you don’t leave a tip.

Pop into the supermarket on your way home though, and you will hear parents screeching at their offspring, people parking in disabled spaces without permits, and general dissent over queues.

Somewhere along the line we have lost our natural ability to behave with courtesy. Perhaps it is because 
modern life is indeed rubbish, complicated and complex, with no set codes of behaviour for unfamiliar situations.

After all, what are the rules for 
texting at the table? Or maybe it is because too many of us think being polite is just another thing that requires effort and a road-map of do’s and don’ts, and perhaps a television series to instruct us.

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It doesn’t have to be demanding though. I’m not talking about bowing and scraping and fighting to hold doors open for each other, although there is nothing wrong with that. I’m talking about saying please and thank you automatically in shops and cafes and restaurants, about not dropping litter or throwing it out of the car window, about 
waiting to let the other motorist pass a tight spot without making an obscene gesture.

I’m talking about showing your children how to use a knife and fork properly and how not to get up from the table as soon as they have finished their meal and whoop round the room, whether they do that in the school dining hall or not.

I’m talking about the fact that if you are a parent, or have any responsibility for children whatsoever, those youngsters will be watching your 
every move, working out how you respond in certain situations, making a mental note of the language you use and the comments you make afterwards.

I’m not perfect, no-one is, 
but we can’t expect our children to behave well if we don’t do it ourselves, can we? How many of us can say, hand on heart, that we always practise what we preach?

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Lead by example, not by yelling, I say. I will leave you with this thought. In the same survey more than one in 
four people said that they believed children were not as “good” as they used to be. What do we expect, with adults like us?

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